USC Raises Record $2.85 Billion

Published 7:00 pm, Wednesday, February 26, 2003

The University of Southern California raised a record $2.85 billion during a recently concluded nine-year fund-raising campaign, the university said.

More than 350,000 individuals, corporations and foundations contributed to the private university during the campaign that began in July 1993 _ when the state's economy was in a slump. It continued through the dot-com years and ended December 2002.

USC officials said Wednesday that the amount of pledges and gifts topped the previous record of about $2.84 billion that Columbia University raised during a 10-year campaign that ended in 2000.

Cross-town rival the University of California, Los Angeles, may take the crown when its decade-long effort ends in 2005, however. It has already raised $2.19 billion.

The only other American university to surpass the $2 billion mark is Harvard, which raised $2.6 billion in a five-year campaign that ended in 1999.

Alan Kreditor, USC senior vice president for university advancement, directed the fund-raising effort.

He said the money flowed even after the dot-com boom of the mid-90s collapsed. The $585 million in donations reported last year, for example, made it the best year in USC's history "by a wide margin."

"It's not like we caught the wave. Even after the wave subsided and sank into the sea, we continued soaring on," he said.

USC said its donations will be used to fund, among other things, 125 endowed faculty positions, about double the number the previous campaign paid for.

Most funds raised were so-called restricted gifts earmarked for specific uses. For instance, $112.5 million was given in 1998 to establish an institute for biomedical engineering.

Kreditor said medicine and engineering programs did very well, perhaps because donors have a sense that the research can translate to immediate benefits.

Only about $1 billion of the $2.85 billion came from USC alumni, Kreditor said, adding that the rest came from donors without strong school ties.